


Axial Tilt

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Pee-Wee League [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: All Dogs Are The Best Dogs, Animal Death, Car Accidents, Career Ending Injuries, Divorce, F/M, Family, Friendship, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Queer life issues, Skin Hunger, Sports bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 07:20:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17178407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: Hank is doing fine.





	Axial Tilt

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags on this one, my dudes.

“Can I use your shower, man?” 

Hank drags his head out of his pillow and blinks in the direction of the en suite. “Go for it, towels are in the cabinets, there should be an unopened toothbrush in a drawer somewhere.” 

“Sweet, thanks.”

The door shuts and Hank hears the fan turn on, water starting to run. A cup of coffee, some stretches, some advil and his leg will loosen up and he might feel almost human by the time… Austin? Dakota? Montana? Whatever the fuck his name is, some ridiculous American geographical location... gets done with his shower and Hank can see if he’s interested in coffee and round two. He closes his eyes and thinks maybe that plan can wait for a few minutes. 

When he opens them again the door to the bathroom is open, letting light into the bedroom, and Dallas (?) is brushing his teeth, standing in view with just a towel wrapped around his waist. It seems like a clear invitation, so Hank drags himself out of bed, wincing to put weight on his leg. He wraps himself in his robe and wanders in the direction of the bathroom. 

No, not Dallas. Denver. His name was Denver. Denver Wyatt. Hank had laughed about that last night. Hank leans against the doorframe and watches Denver brush his teeth with military efficiency. He spits into the sink, rinses his mouth with water, spits again, and then turns to give Hank a long, assessing look. 

“Look, man,” Denver begins in his wide American accent, “not that it’s any of my business or whatever, but do you have a girlfriend?”

“A what?” It’s not a question he was expecting really. 

The man in the bathroom gives him an unimpressed look and pulls open a drawer to the far right on the His and Hers sink set in the bathroom. Hank had forgotten. He doesn’t really bother with that side of the sink, but there’s some kind of hideously expensive moisturizer in the drawer. Mascara. A gleaming tube of what he knows is red lipstick. Bobby pins. A toothbrush. Some kind of under eye gel pad things. Women’s branded deodorant (Strong Enough for a Man, PH-balanced for a Woman). Tampons. 

“I have an ex-wife.”

“Your ex-wife still keeps shit in your bathroom?” 

“ _Not that it’s any of your business_ ,” Hank repeats, “but we… share custody. I guess she keeps things here, still. It's just easier.” 

Denver drops his towel. “You have a kid?”

“We have an elderly golden retriever.” 

Hank can hear him laugh as he pulls his t-shirt over his head. “Man, that sounds messy as fuck.” 

“Like you said last night,” Hank says, “you’re here on leave, so it’s not really your mess to worry about.” 

“That’s for fucking sure,” Denver agrees, “You want me to hit the road, or you want to try for round two?”

“Well,” Hank says, thinking about how warm his hands had felt, the feel of his arms, the fucking _relief_ of the feel of skin on skin, “there’s no point wasting opportunities.” 

“The motto of the 623rd,” Denver agrees, and pulls him back to bed by the belt of his robe. 

 

 

 

 

Denver sees himself off with travel mug of coffee and an empty to promise to call if he’s ever in Toronto again. Hank takes his own shower, thinks about walking down to the cafe down the street, but it’s started raining--cold late fall drizzle--and instead he puts on sweatpants and a fleece, makes himself a cup of coffee from the pot he made for his guest, and settles down on the couch to put on TSN, and check his messages. 

The one from Katya is… bewildering. _Are you ok?_ She didn’t even ask him in the family groupchat. 

And Bells, just _bro…._

More bewildering: the ones from guys at work, a few from guys that he used to play on the Leafs with, that he rarely keeps in touch with.

 _Wow dude, I’m sorry that’s kind of fucked up_ from Brownie  
And  
_dude you are lucky you dropped that bitch before, good riddance_ from Hasty  
And  
_sucks bro_ from Thirsty

And, even more bewildering, from Milk, “sorry brother. You doing ok? Kinda fucked up man, Duncs never seemed like that guy you know?”

 

What?

He texts Katya back because les gars are all idiots and they probably aren’t really expecting any real answer, anyway, unless they’re expecting gossip. Hank sort of thought his days of generating juicy NHL gossip were over. But what the fuck does Duncan have to do with anything? 

Katya responds to his question of why the fuck wouldn’t he be ok, with a _you don’t have alerts turned on for your name?_

_Why would I do that?_

He gets an eye roll emoji and a link to a blog article that consists, as far as he can tell of wild speculation and three cell-phone shots of his ex-wife holding hands with Michael Duncan, his old linemate. The headline says HANK TEIXEIRA’S SUPERMODEL EX WIFE GETTING SERIOUS WITH OLD TEAMMATE??

Oh. 

That’s… a little hilarious, for lots of reasons, but he can see how people might think he’d be upset about it. He and Duncs had been close and the press had ripped Manon to shreds when they’d divorced. Plus there was the whole part where Duncs had been, before he’d ever been Hank’s teammate, a Chantal-rookie. Hank had been out of the house, hadn’t grown up with him like he had Vinny or Pens or Lettsy or Henny or Pasha. He’d been in the Q for the year Duncs had lived in his house, they had never even crossed paths. But it’d been enough that when Hank had gone to The Wild and Duncs had been traded there too, they’d had a common ground -- a seed to build chemistry and friendship around, a ready-made brotherhood, just add sweat and hockey. 

He spends twenty minutes with the foam roller then goes and sits in the steam sauna he’d had built into the bathroom, then stretches some more, then takes a cold shower, then makes some lunch. Sunday, rest day. He calls his dads, who kindly ignore his drama and instead distract him with midget hockey drama and Uncle Sergei’s restaurant drama and the soap opera dramatizations of the chicken flock (Magdalen and Hestia are, apparently, in a fight. Juli has sided with Hestia, Rochelle is in a snit with everyone and looking for worms on the other side of the yard and refuses to talk to any of them, his dad’s narration has him laughing until he’s crying). And then calls his mom who talks to him about a book they’re both reading and who is, as always, blissfully far removed from Canadian sports media. And then he tells all his meddling sisters, cousins, etc, to fuck off out of his personal life in groupchat. 

Bells asks, _Am I supposed to be mad at Manon about this? I’m having lunch with her Tuesday. I don’t want to be mad at her._

 _Dude_ , Mavs tells him in true brotherly solidarity, _I am way uninterested in this. Did you see that offside call against the diques last night? So heinous._

Hank did see that offside call last night. 

_Fucking horseshit call_ Hank agrees and the groupchat forgets all about his ex-wife for the much sweeter topic of cursing zebras, their judgement, eyesight, morals, general cognitive ability and maternal lineage. 

 

 

It’s four when the doorbell rings and Hank is making soup. He has to wash raw chicken off his hands before he can get it and he’s a little confused why she didn’t just use her key, anyway. 

Manon LaFleur is beautiful, even when standing fully drenched in the rain, hair hanging limp around her shoulders, carrying in her arms, like an overgrown toddler, a full sized Golden Retriever wrapped in a camel-colored Burberry trench. She’s listing halfway to the side to offset the weight.

“Sorry.” Hank steps aside to let her through. “You have anything in the car you need me to bring in?”

“Her bag’s in the backseat.”

When he comes back inside, Manon’s drying her hair with the same towel Denver had wrapped around his waist this morning. The thin skin around her eyes is tinged so faintly purple from lack of sleep, the skin around her nose and mouth is red from the cold. Her hair’s darker when it’s wet, deep honey blonde when it’s dry. 

Anne is gnawing on a dog treat in her bed, dry and content. 

“I’m sorry,” she says when Hank puts the bag of Anne’s food and toys down in the kitchen.

“We’ve been divorced for more years then we’ve been married, Manon, I’m not mad if you have a boyfriend.” He squats down to kiss Anne, who licks his face, tail wagging, and whines for his attention. It breaks his heart a little. When she was younger, she’d be jumping on him from the excitement of seeing him. Her legs don’t work that well anymore. “Is the weather making her hips ache more, you think?”

“Yes, I gave her medicine before we came over. She’ll be sleepy. How _are_ you?” She kisses the air by his cheeks three times when he stands and asks, “How is _your_ hip?” She smells, this close, very strongly of wet dog. 

“I’m alright. Dad was telling me about Magdalen and Juli, are you all caught up on chicken drama?” 

He doesn’t miss the way her mouth pinches when he avoids her question but she sits down at the table and says, “No, I am out of the loop. Make me a cup of tea and tell me all about it.”

“Do you have time to stay for dinner? I’m making soup.” 

“I have a flight at seven.”

Hank makes her tea. He tells her about the chickens. He doesn’t ask her about Duncan. She tells him she’s having lunch with Bells on Tuesday while she’s in Manhattan. Anne snores through her pain medication. 

“Can I use your shower?” 

Hank gets her a fresh towel. Takes some ibuprofen while Manon’s not there to fret, and eases himself down on the floor next to Anne. “Low pressure systems are fucking hell, huh, baby girl?” he mutters to himself, petting her. 

When Manon comes out, an hour later, her hair is dry, she smells like his shower gel, and she’s put makeup on from the drawer, her skin tone suddenly, artificially, even and glowing. She looks good. She looks like she’s finally gained a little bit of weight, she looks healthy--

“Are you pregnant?” Hank asks, before he can stop himself, staring up at her. 

“No,” she says but she looks _sheepish_ about it, can’t hide the way she turns her head away just a little bit, the face she makes. 

“But you want to be.” His throat feels like it’s tightening up and he’s so… “You want to be. Things are _serious_ with Duncs and you want…. You’re _trying_. 

“It’s not about Mike. It’s... I’m just…”

He didn’t think he was angry. But there it is. Anger. “You never wanted kids before.” Fuck, they’d fought about it enough. 

“I was _twenty-one_ and modeling still, Hank, of course I didn’t really want kids. I was focusing on my career.”

She couldn’t have kids. They’d tried. Hank had tried, at least, and Manon had let him try sometimes, at the end. She’d been too fucking thin. They’d fought about that too. Now she’s actually put some weight on her hips, she’s transitioned her career to a travel vlog with an international fan base that loves her for being kind and witty and charmingly self-deprecating while snacking her way through foreign countries and that neatly doesn’t overlap much with the Canadian hockey fan base that still refuses to think of her as anything but a shallow, superficial bitch that abandoned hockey’s crown prince at his darkest hour, no matter how many times Hank tried to tell the media it wasn’t her fault, and she…

“Let me get your coat,” Hank says, clenching his teeth to stand without staggering, refusing to favor his leg. “You don’t want to miss your flight.” 

“Hank.” 

“Do you have another coat here? This one’s going to need to be dry-cleaned.”

“I’ll Febreeze it.”

“I’ll get you an umbrella, do you have your purse?”

“Hank,” she says, as he stands at the door. 

“I’ve got some stuff I need to finish up around the house, so…”

“I’m not trying to have a baby,” she says, standing at his door with her purse in her hand and her wet-dog-smelling-coat draped over her arm. “I’m just… I’m just _happy_ , Hank. I’m just happy.”

“You’re happy with Duncs.”

“Yes,” she says, finally actually angry. “I’m happy with Mike. Goodbye, Hank, I’ll be back Wednesday after next, we can work out when I’ll pick up Anne next week.”

“Have a nice flight, drive safe,” Hank says, mostly to himself as she slams the car door shut. 

 

Mike Duncan shows up at his condo door on Thursday evening. He’s in jeans and a sweatshirt and Hank is outside watching his dog try to walk far enough to shit by a bush. 

Hank has had enough time to cool down from his anger. To text Manon an apology, to talk to his therapist, to realize that he wasn’t really angry because Manon might have a baby with an old friend and not him, but because it was an old fight he’d never let go of, and because during the divorce he couldn’t count the number of time some well-meaning asshole had told him, “Well, it’s lucky you don’t have kids,” and Hank had wanted to put his fist through a fucking wall. He was, evidently, still kind of fucking angry about that. 

Hank had woken Thursday morning with a dream about the car crash. It wasn’t a nightmare. Hank had done his fucking therapy. He’d done the EMDR, he’d _reprocessed_. He’d adapted and _grown_ and gone to fucking university and learned to live his new life. He didn’t wake up drenched in fear-sweat and screaming. He didn’t wake up seeing Manon, bleeding from a head wound, roof of the car crumpled around her. He woke up from a dream of the crunch that the medic’s feet made on the glass, staring at their boots, upside down, calm and detached and fuzzy. It’s not a nightmare, but it’s still the dream he has when he dreams about regret. 

Anne does her business and then sniffs around some fencing while Hank bags it and puts in the dog trash. Mike leans against his truck. Hank waits until Anne is hobbling towards him, ready to go back in, then scoops her up and starts walking for his door. 

“Come on in, Duncs,” he says. 

“Good to see you, brother,” Duncs says when he shrugs off his coat. He pulls Hank into a hug and Hank doesn’t fight it, wouldn’t. He’s warm, and solid, and Hank doesn’t think about how good it feels but he lets himself enjoy it. 

“Want something to drink?” 

“Sure.” 

Hank turns on the electric kettle, gets mugs down from the cabinets. 

“How’s your leg these days?” 

“How’s your fucking wrist?” 

“Alright, alright, point taken.” 

Hank has five different types of caffeinated or non-caffeinated teas, coffee, beer, and a really nice bottle of Scotch in the house. He doesn’t ask Duncs what he wants, just makes the smokey Russian caravan tea, sweetens a cup of it for Duncs with raspberry jam, adds milk, and sets it in front of him. Exactly like Duncs would have had it at home, at _Hank’s_ home, his rookie year. 

Duncan looks at him, looks at the cup, looks back at him, and finally takes a sip. “I forgot what a petty little shit you are.” 

Hank gets himself a beer and sits down across from Duncs. “If you’re here to talk to me about Manon, I already told her I’m sorry.” 

“I know, she told me.” 

Hank just drinks his beer and studies Duncan’s face. He’s older -- was older than Hank by a few years, of course, and now they’re both older. Hank hasn’t seen him in years. It was hard, impossible, those first few months, years, after the crash, to talk to any of them. All the guys had texted and emailed and called and sent fucking fruit baskets and casseroles that had actually been ordered by their wives and girlfriends and Hank hadn’t talked to any of them, just blocked their calls and holed himself up to lick his wounds and keep his misery to himself. It’d hurt too much, to think about any of them. 

He’d seen some of the guys from the Leafs these days -- now that he’s healed, _healing_ , like his therapist said, and now that he was working in their front office and it was fine and he talked and worked in hockey every day, but there was still a lot of the guys from the Wild he hadn’t talked to, had figured those bridges were burned too thoroughly to salvage. 

“We didn’t want you to find out that way, we were going to tell you before, we didn’t want you to find out through the news.” 

“I know, it’s ok.” 

Duncs gives him an exasperated look and says, “Is it really?” but he doesn’t give him time to answer that (apparently rhetorical) question. Instead he says, “I saw Bells in NYC, she looked good.” 

Hank snorts. “She’s fucking miserable in her job, but refuses to admit it. Mom wants to stage an intervention.”

“Look, Hank, actually I… I got invited to the number retirement ceremony for your dads in January. The whole… you know, they’re inviting all your dads’ rookies.”

“Papa mentioned.”

“I wanted… Manon’s my plus one, of course, but if it…. It’s _your_ family event, if it’s going to make it weird for you I can bring my mom or something.” 

Hank takes a breath and lets it out. “It’s fine, seriously. It’ll be nice to have her there.” 

Whatever Duncs was going to say to that gets lost, though, when Hank’s fucking phone dings.

Or rather, doesn’t ding. Pings with the soft, _distinctive_ tone of the Grindr app. 

Duncs stares at his phone and Hank rolls his eyes, turns the notifications for his phone off, and shoves his phone in his pocket. “So look, it’s fine, take Manon to the ceremony. I’m happy for you. It’s good to see you again, We should catch up again some time…”

“Hank.”

“I’ve got dinner plans so…”

“Hank. Bro. You do not have dinner plans. Hank.”

“For fuck’s sake, Duncs, just --”

“Is that why you never called any of us back, asshole? We wouldn’t have cared? Jesus fucking christ, you shithead, Chants was my coach, I wouldn’t have cared if you were gay.” 

“I’m not _gay_.” 

“Bi. Queer. Pan. Whatever, however you identify.” 

“I _identify_ as straight. Ish. Mostly. I like women. I’m not…”

“You don’t need to be ashamed… we wouldn’t have.”

“I’m not _ashamed_ ,” Hank spits, cornered and livid and pissed and shaking, “of sucking dick every once in a while. And I know the whole accept your sexuality spiel, I don’t need the YCP lecture.”

“Then what are you ashamed of?” 

“What?” Hank asks, shrugging out of Duncs’s grasp and retreating to the living room. 

“You said you weren’t ashamed of sucking dick. But you’re… what are you ashamed of, Hank? You never called. You never texted. We would have taken a fucking postcard, but you fucking stonewalled us all out.”

Hank can’t speak. He can’t... It’s too close, too tender, even after all the years. And too… he’s never told anyone, it’s so fucking _pathetic_ and...

“Teixeira… I was your fucking liney. Tell me, you stubborn little shithead, and I’ll forgive you for leaving me on read for seven years.” 

“What do you miss the most?” Hank says, finally, when he think he’s gotten himself to the point that his voice will sound normal. “About playing hockey.” 

Duncs doesn’t give him some bullshit answer. He only retired a year ago, Hank figures missing hockey’s probably always somewhere near the forefront of his mind. Duncs leans against a bookshelf and is quiet, thinking for a few minutes before he finally says, “I always feel like I’m supposed to say the fans, you know? Like when… when you get a goal at home and the crowd just roared and it was so fucking loud and your blood was just racing and…”

Hank bites his lip. 

“But I… what I really miss, I guess, is plane rides.” 

Hank feels his shoulders drop. “Yeah,” he says softly. 

“I miss the boys, I miss… Tacs fucking snoring and Mitchie stealing my fucking jacket for a pillow. I miss the pranks and the huddles and the fucking balltaps.”

“The slaps on the back and falling asleep next to each other on the bus, and sitting on each other during video.” 

“Yeah,” Duncs says, just as softly. “Hank Teixeira, you dumb fucking shit, are you seriously sucking dick just for some cheap ass imitation camaraderie?” 

“I just miss…” Hank is _not_ going to cry in his own fucking living room in front of Michael fucking Duncan. 

“You miss people touching you. Men.” 

“I didn’t even know I missed it. I was so fucking angry, and everything fucking hurt, I was just… I was in pain and rehab sucked and my marriage was falling apart because I was being, to quote my little brother, a heinous dickweed, to my wife and everyone else while acting like I wasn’t, and I was so miserable I didn’t even notice, and then I went back to school and was… putting myself back together again and some assholes in my study group dragged me off to a shitty frat party and… some drunk asshole on the lacrosse team put his arm around my shoulder and all of sudden I just couldn’t… I just… I realized I didn’t really give a shit what I needed to do to keep his arm there, you know? I would have murdered someone if he asked me to. Handies in the bathroom seemed like an easy deal.” 

“That is the saddest fucking thing I have ever heard in my entire life,” Duncan, the fucking asshole, says. 

“Shut the fuck up.” 

“You could have… you could have called us. We would have answered. We fucking loved you. We missed you. We would have flown to fucking… wherever the fuck college town and cuddled you, you miserable, proud, stubborn fucking douchebag.” 

“No, I couldn’t. Half the days I couldn’t even fucking... think about hockey without wanting to fucking kill myself and… I couldn’t… none of you knew. You were all still playing and you didn’t _know_ yet, what it’s like without hockey. You didn’t know. You wouldn’t have… I couldn’t have brought myself to admit how… what’s it like… how much I missed it. How… desperate I was without it.” He can’t believe he’s saying this shit out loud, admitting it. Fuck his fucking life. 

“Mavs is right. You’re a dickweed.” 

“I know.”

“Get on the fucking couch, Teixeira.” 

“I don’t. Stop,” Hank protests as Duncs shoves him to the couch. Hank can’t look at him, doesn’t think he’d be able to bear Duncs’s pity. 

“Shut the fuck up, you are an idiot. You are a moron, and I thought… I thought you said you were in fucking therapy, you fucking emotionally repressed shit-weasel. Scoot over, I am so fucking mad at you right now.” 

“Don’t fucking touch me just because….I don’t want your fucking pity, Duncan, get the fuck--”

Duncan claps one hand over his mouth, big and warm, and clamps the other around his waist, pulling him down prone on the couch to be the little spoon. “I am _not_ feeling sorry for you, I am so mad at you I could shake you.” 

“Mmmmfphhhf mmmmfwefffffffff,” Hank says into Duncs’s hand and Duncs lets off his mouth. 

“What was that?”

“This is non-consensual cuddling, Duncan, let me up.”

“I. Don’t. Care,” Duncs says, “I should have done this seven years ago. Make yourself useful and tell your TV to turn the Knicks game on.”

“Google, play the Knicks game,” Hank grumbles and, Google, the traitor, brings the game up. 

“I don’t even like the Knicks,” Hank mutters to himself.

“Shut up, Teixeira, all of your opinions are wrong.” Duncs settles himself down, arm wrapped around Hank’s waist, holding him close.

 

 

 

Manon comes back from her trip and Hank drops Anne off at her apartment. They have a glass of wine and Manon doesn’t mention anything about Duncs. They talk through Anne’s health and Christmas plans and Manon’s trip. 

“Thank you.” Manon blushes when Hank compliments her latest episode. “I… didn’t know you watched.” 

“YouTube kept suggesting,” Hank teases, like he isn’t subscribed, like he hasn’t watched every single episode. 

Manon yawns and sets her empty wine glass down. “Givenchy is dressing me for your dads’ ceremony.” 

“What color?” 

“Silver.” 

Hank hums, takes the last sip of his own glass. 

“You should wear your John Varvatos with the shawl collar.” She digs her toes under his leg on the couch. 

Hank rolls his eyes. “Dress your own boyfriend.” 

“You’re not bringing anyone?”

“What would be the point? It’s not like everyone there doesn’t already know I’m single.” 

“You could bring someone.”

“Oh, wow, really? Thanks, I didn’t know.” He pinches her ankle. 

By the time he shrugs on his coat and gives some last minute goodbye hugs to his dog, Manon is yawning even more, can barely keep her eyes open, “It was good to see you,” she says as she walks him to the door. 

“For sure.” Hank kisses her cheek. It sure as hell beats the first two years when they’d made the dog-exchange through their attorneys. “Tell Duncs I said hi.”

“Tell him yourself. He wants to have you over for dinner next week when you pick her up, or maybe before you leave for Christmas.” 

 

 

 

 

“The weird thing,” Bells says three days later when her work sends her to Toronto and she makes herself at home on his couch, heels kicked off and demanding he order sushi, “is that Manon thinks you’re _nice_. Also, are the Leafs really looking at Nichols right now?” 

“I’m nice.” Hank protests. “And I’m not talking to you about Nichols. Do you want this volcano roll thing?” 

“He’s all wrong and he’s _expensive_. You need depth. I want the volcano roll and tempura. You’re not nice. You’ve never been nice. You’re an arrogant, self-centered alpha male with a weird sadistic streak. I have literally zero idea how you convinced her you were nice. No, nevermind, I don’t want tempura… get another salmon roll instead.”

“Yes, princess. As you wish, princess.” 

“See. You’re an asshole. You an asshole who beheaded my Hello Kitty plushie and told me that it had been captured by the mob and guillotined for siding with the bourgeoisie when I was five.”

“Yes,” Hank says, tamping down his irritation, “and you were a scheming little bitch who put NAIR in my shampoo and fucked up my flow three days before our team roster photos. Are we really going to start dragging shit out of the past?”

“You deserved it. That was righteous vengeance. Anyway, remember when you were fourteen and you somehow managed to haze a six foot tall NHL rookie who had played two years at _college_? He was twenty years old. You made him run around the house in his underwear during a snowstorm.”

“In my defense, that was hilarious and also in good fun. Mark and I were good friends for years.” He thinks about Duncs. Maybe he should call Mark. “He’s coaching defense for North Dakota,” he adds, thinking about it. . 

“Amazing. Get him to find you someone who can play fifteen minutes on a third line and who’s half the price of Nichols.” 

“Bells.”

“Tell him to convince Andre Karlson to sign with you, not the Lightning.”

“Bells.”

“What. They’re friends, right? They played together for two years in St. Louis. Tell him if he doesn’t I’ll remind everyone that he once let a fourteen-year-old punk convince him the only way he could earn his spot on an NHL roster was to get frostbite on his nuts.” 

“I hate you.” Hank… is grateful, to no longer be so pathetic and obviously _fragile_ that his little sister wouldn’t even fight with him anymore. Five years ago and she’d been so nice it’d been unbearable. 

“On the Foreurs you duct-taped Jonathan Aucoin to a hotel mattress.”

“Oh my god, that doesn’t count. Everyone gets duct-taped to a hotel mattress in juniors.” 

“I’m just saying, maybe if you’d ever let Manon see what a colossal dickweed you are sometimes, she wouldn’t have felt like you were always shutting her out. Maybe if you’d just let her see all the ugly, she could have stayed.” 

“She saw plenty of ugly.”

“No, she didn’t. She saw you pull away. She saw you freeze her out. She saw you show her nothing and give her nothing and push her away. We all knew you were hurting, Hank, and you never let any of us help. You just kept telling us all you were fine.” 

“Since we’re talking about not letting family help, Bells, what the fuck is up with your job?” 

“I’m not talking about it.” 

“You hate it. You hate your job.”

“I _love_ my job. It is my dream job. I have always wanted to work for the UN and I love it and…”

“You are a giant fucking liar.”

“Do you think I should open a bottle of wine?”

“I think I don’t care if you're grown up, I’m still your older brother and I can just sit on you until you admit defeat.” 

 

 

 

The next morning, Hank works out on the row machine. Bells joins him, still half asleep on the treadmill. They cool down on the stretching mats and then she follows him into the kitchen. 

“Are we going to talk about it?” Bells asks, when he’s making coffee. 

“Talk about what?” Hank asks. “About your awful job or about how I’m an asshole?” 

Bells asks, “You know what my biggest memory of you is, from when we were kids?”

Hanks leans his head back against the cabinets. “I don’t know. Is it it the time I tied you up and left you in the closet. Or the time I lit all your Barbie dolls on fire?”

“No.”

“Oh, I know, it was the time that summer in the pool when I tried to waterboard you using a beach towel and you kicked me in the nuts and then tried to drown me.”

“No, It was when I was sixteen. Remember, it was my ill-advised semester at Shattuck, and I’d snuck out of dorms and gone to that party...”

“You got scared,” Hank says softly.

“I got overwhelmed and it was too much and there were people drinking and that boy kept following me around and I climbed out a bathroom window and I called you at one am.”

Hank gives her half a smile.

“You were twenty-two. Playing for the fucking Wild, and you… you never bitched. You got there fifteen minutes faster than Google Maps said was possible, in pajama pants and a hoodie, and you never once acted like you resented me for waking you up in the middle of the night. You didn’t lecture me about being safer or smarter. You didn’t remind me you had eight am practice. You didn’t tell the dads on me. And you lied through your teeth to Shattuck the next morning about how you’d picked me up for a family emergency so I wouldn’t get in trouble for sneaking out after curfew.” 

“Snitches get stitches.”

Bells laughs, a silent shake through her chest. “Yeah,” she says softly, “snitches get stitches.”

“That’s not… You’re my baby sister, Bells, it was nothing.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Bells swallows. “And that time Zaphod had a run-in with a porcupine and you were so careful with him when you took him to the vet. I remember that you were the only one of my siblings who would read to us when we were sick. Dad and Papa, of course, but you think Mavs would have sat with me and read me _The Hobbit_ when I had the flu? Yeah, right.” 

Hank works his jaw. “I never wanted anyone to make any of you cry, unless it was me,” voice tight and aching.

“You always knew when something hurt.”

Hank snorts and closes his eyes. 

“And you always made it better.”

“Except when I didn’t.” 

Bells sighs. “Except when you didn’t.” 

Hank pours them both a cup of coffee. Finally he asks, “Are you scarred for life?” 

Bells punches him in the arm. “As if, loser. I gave as good as I got.” 

Hank feels a grin pull at his mouth, unexpected, and puts his arm around her shoulder. “Yeah, you did. You were a plotting, revenge-minded little terror. Remember that time you put powdered Carolina Reaper chilis in my protein powder?” 

Bells snorts. “Team Slytherin for life.” 

“Amen.” 

“Please, asshole. You’re a Hufflepuff.” 

 

 

 

 

Hank flies to Calgary on the 23rd for Christmas. Mavs and Katya are the only two whose schedules are confined enough to keep them from traveling this year so Katya and her husband are hosting, and the whole collective Familia is blocked out in a chunk of hotel rooms. 

Hank goes to Manon’s the night before, to drop off Anne and, reluctantly, have dinner with her and Duncs. 

“What’s Jimmy like?” Manon asks. “You met him last summer, right?”

“Sweet.” Hank thinks about it. “Quiet. He seemed kinda overwhelmed some of the time, but when he got comfortable, he was funny. Sarcastic. Smart as shit, too. Mavs finally got him out on a board. He seems like a good kid. You’ll meet him at the ceremony. Mavs was talking him into to a trip to LA to get a tux for it.”

Somehow Manon talks him into dessert and Duncs talks him into coffee in the living room, squeezes all three of them on the love seat, with Anne conveniently asleep on the sofa, and sneaks his arm around Manon’s shoulder to rest his hand on Hank’s neck. 

“What am I, your high school prom date?” Hank glares at him.

“Shut up, Hank.” Duncs smiles. “We’re watching the Grinch.” 

 

 

 

They, somehow, co-opt the Flames practice rink for their family Christmas night shinny game. There are at least three stray Inferno members who can’t make it home for Christmas, two stray Flames, and two guys in the NHL who flew to Calgary because Hank’s dads watched out for them and parented them more than their own dads ever did and so here they fucking are. Sasha argues with Oskar, Katya’s husband about the Die Hard movies. Viktor and Mavs and Bells put too much brandy in the whipped cream and insist on making three batches of brigadeiro, all of which vanish too quickly. Sergei and Stick and Alex argue about chemistry and breadmaking. Mom puts on skates, her once yearly ritual, and fails at hockey. They make Sof play goalie. Grandmaman makes punch and Grandmom asks pointed questions about when is someone going to give her great-grandbabies, and it is all exactly like Christmas always is. Two years ago it would have been hard. Now, it’s a comfort. 

His therapist will probably say it’s progress. 

 

 

Hank gets back to Toronto on the 2nd and goes to pick Anne only to find her asleep on Manon’s bed, and Manon next to her, silently weeping. 

“I need to take her to the vet,” Manon chokes out in little hiccoughs, “but I can’t, I just can’t, I’m sorry, Hank, I just… I just can’t. She’s not in pain, I don’t think she’s in any pain, but she’s breathing so shallowly and…”

Hank sits down on the mattress, puts his hand on his dog’s side. She opens her eyes, moves her muzzle just a hint towards his palm and he slides his hand up to her face, lets her smell him. She licks his hand and then closes her eyes. Her breath, shallow but fast, slows, her chest stops rising. Manon chokes out a sob and buries her head in her fur. 

Hank can’t help it--he doesn't _cry_ , he’s not going to cry, but there’s tears, hot and burning on his cheeks. He pulls Manon against him and gasps and all of a sudden it just breaks. It’s not fair, it’s not fucking fair. Dogs deserve to live forever and humans… humans don’t deserve them. Hank sobs until his face is covered with snot and he’s struggling to breathe through the wetness on his face and Manon shakes and weeps with her hands tangled in Anne’s fur. 

 

Hank wakes up, asleep in an irreparably wrinkled two-piece Calvin Klein suit, lying on top of the bed with his ex-wife and a cold, motionless dog, his ex-liney standing in the doorway watching them. He shifts his arm to look at his watch. It’s half past midnight. He doesn’t say anything. 

“Do you… want her buried here, or did you guys have another place picked out?” Duncs finally asks. 

“I don’t know. I think… I think Manon wanted to bury her underneath the tree in the back.” 

“Alright.” Duncs sounds tired. “I can probably dig it now, if you want, but I'd rather wait until morning.” 

“Morning’s fine.” Hank sits up, “But I don’t know…”

“I don’t know if it’s weird to just… leave her here tonight? Move her?” Duncs seems lost. 

“We should… wrap her in a shroud.” Manon says, awake next to him, “and move her to the guest room to lie in state and then…”

“Are we having a wake?” Duncs asks. 

“Well,” Hank stands up, “I am about to get very drunk, so I guess so.”

 

 

Manon wraps her in a sheet and Duncs puts her in the guest bedroom and Hank finds an unopened bottle of GlenMorangie hiding in the back of Manon’s cupboard and takes off his suit coat. Duncs gives him a pair of pajamas, and Manon breaks out a tube of cookie dough and Hank and Manon tell Duncs about Anne, when she was a puppy. About Anne at the dog park. About Anne eating a whole bowl of chili in the two seconds Hank’s back was turned and then farting all night. About Anne And The Squirrel. About Anne And The Mailman. About Anne, when Hank was in the hospital. 

And about Anne, how’d she lay on him when he hurt so bad after PT he was crying alone in the bathroom. About the days Anne was the only living being he’d talked to. About how afraid he’d been. How angry and disappointed and sniveling and hopeless and _mean_ he’d felt, right through his bones, fit for no one, but Anne hadn’t cared. About all the worst nights that Anne had gotten him through--Hank has to tell those stories because Manon doesn’t know them. 

And then Manon cries and squeezes his hand and tells him about Anne, when Manon was so mad at him she drove out to the country just so she throw boxes and boxes of cheap glass and ceramic shit she’d bought at a dollar store at an old cement wall, just to scream in peace, and Anne licked her face while she cried in the car afterwards. About Anne waiting next to her, when Manon threw his wedding ring into Lake Ontario. 

Duncs talks about Anne -- when he first met her. The first night he came over to pick Manon up on a date. About his own dog, Cheesebread, growing up. And Hank tells them about Mako. About Zaphod and Gogol and Sir Francis Drake and Wartortle. 

“I don’t think I can sleep on the bed, right now…” Manon says, wavering at the bedroom door, looking at the indentation where they’d all laid before. It’s four am. 

“Right,” he says, “Duncs, help me move some blankets, we’ll sleep on the floor in the living room.” It makes perfect sense in his hazy state. They won’t all fit on the couch. 

They pile all the blankets from the linen closet on the floor. “Is this alright with your leg?” Duncs asks. 

“It’s alright with the pillows,” Hank mumbles. Manon curls against him, mouth pressed to his. “You--” Hank tries to protest. 

“Shush,” Duncs says, wrapping his arm around Hank, “go to sleep, Hank,” his mouth warm against Hank’s neck.

 

On the 3rd, they bury Anne, and on the 4th, the temperature plummets. Hank goes back to work. He goes to therapy and then to PT on the 5th. He comes home and packs up Anne’s things and takes them to the dog shelter and only cries a little. 

On the 8th Duncs invites him over to watch the ‘diques game. 

“You’re not subtle.” Hank sighs when Duncs seats him in the middle of the couch between the two of them, and puts his arm around him again. 

“I’m a hockey player, I’m incapable of subtle,” Duncs agrees. 

“Are you trying to get into my pants?”

“Not really,” Duncs says, thumb making circles on Hank’s shoulder. “But… you’re not the only one who misses hockey.” Manon stretches her legs over them, ankles crossed. 

“Alright,” Hank hums and leans against him. Duncs takes his hand, his fingers are calloused and warm, hands broad as they wrap around Hank’s.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still on tumblr for however long, so come find me at superstitionhockey
> 
> This fic is partly dedicated to a Very Good Dog named Anne the Red. Humans don't really deserve dogs, but they still somehow love us anyway? The title comes from the phrase "Axial Tilt is the reason for the season" So, happy shortest days of the year winter celebration time, if that's your thing. 
> 
> Many thanks to dangercupcake for editing my commas and cheering me on.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hank Coda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18388880) by [Superstition_hockey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey)




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